Dr. Michael Brown Debates Tovia Singer

This is probably the best of the audio debates between a believer in Jesus and an anti-missionary. Tovia Singer debates quite well at the popular level. He is well-prepared for engaging objections by laypeople. As this debate shows, he is not quite as skilled at debating real scholars. One of my goals in the next few years is to get anti-missionaries into debate against high-level Christian scholars in order to show that the anti-missionary arguments, which look so great on the surface, are actually quite weak.

Ger Does Not Mean Convert

http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H1616&t=ESV
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H1481&t=ESV

In Rabbinical Judaism, the term "ger"(גָּר) is generally used to designate a convert to Judaism. This is why those who want to convert to Orthodox Judaism. However, a simple word study of how the term was used in the Hebrew Bible shows that the word means no such thing. It is a derivative of "gur" (גּוּר) which means to sojourn. It is a term to designate foreigners who live in the land. It is never used for conversion. Here is a list of references where the word clearly does not mean convert. Even the Artscroll translation does not use the term "convert" or "proselyte" in these verses. I have highlighted in bold all instances of "ger" in these verses.

    Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.
(Genesis 15:13 ESV)

    “I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”
(Genesis 23:4 ESV)

    She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”   
(Exodus 2:22 ESV)

    “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
(Exodus 22:21 ESV)

    “You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
(Exodus 23:9 ESV)

    These were the cities designated for all the people of Israel and for the stranger sojourning among them, that anyone who killed a person without intent could flee there, so that he might not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, till he stood before the congregation.
(Joshua 20:9 ESV)

    (the sojourner has not lodged in the street;
        I have opened my doors to the traveler),
(Job 31:32 ESV)

    “Hear my prayer, O LORD,
        and give ear to my cry;
        hold not your peace at my tears!
    For I am a sojourner with you,
        a guest, like all my fathers.
(Psalm 39:12 ESV, verse 13 in the Artscroll)

    They kill the widow and the sojourner,
        and murder the fatherless;
(Psalm 94:6 ESV)

    I am a sojourner on the earth;
        hide not your commandments from me!
(Psalm 119:19 ESV)

    The LORD watches over the sojourners;
        he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
        but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
(Psalm 146:9 ESV)

    O you hope of Israel,
        its savior in time of trouble,
    why should you be like a stranger in the land,
        like a traveler who turns aside to tarry for a night?
(Jeremiah 14:8 ESV)

    For any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I the LORD will answer him myself.
(Ezekiel 14:7 ESV)

    You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the sojourners who reside among you and have had children among you. They shall be to you as native-born children of Israel. With you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe the sojourner resides, there you shall assign him his inheritance, declares the Lord GOD.
(Ezekiel 47:22-23 ESV)

    “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.
(Malachi 3:5 ESV)

Furthermore, there are many verses where the term "ger" is contrasted with a native of the land. It makes more sense to translate the term "stranger" and not "convert" even though Artscroll insists on using "convert."

    For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land.
(Exodus 12:19 ESV)

    There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”
(Exodus 12:49 ESV)

    but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.
(Exodus 20:10 ESV)

    “Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.
(Exodus 23:12 ESV)

    “And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.   
(Leviticus 16:29 ESV)

    “And you shall say to them, Any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it to the LORD, that man shall be cut off from his people.
(Leviticus 17:8-9 ESV)

Why is this important? Ezekiel has already established that sojourners get an inheritance of the land. They are not converts, and they are not of Israelite blood. Furthermore, the Israelites were "gerim" in the land of Egypt. I hope this does not mean that they were converts. Abraham was a "ger"and the word "Gershon" means not convert but stranger.

There will be one law for both the born Israelite and for the stranger. This stranger does not need to convert in order to be bound by the law. Strangers who live in Israel are as bound by the Sabbath laws as anyone else. They must observe the festivals, and can offer sacrifices.

The system of the rabbis denies this. They believe that even in Israel a non-Jew has to convert to be bound by the law. This is why there is such a thing as a "Shabbos Goy" a non-Jew who can do forbidden activities on the Sabbath and on holidays. The Bible provides no such support for such a system.

This simply provides further evidence that Rabbinical Judaism is not the system of Moses, but is an unbiblical, man-made system that violates the Law of Moses and dishonors God.

Immortality Entails Presentism

One of the issues in contemporary metaphysics is whether temporal becoming is an objective feature of reality. J.M.E. McTaggart identified two competing theories of time, the dynamic theory, which he calls the A-theory, and the static theory, which he calls the B-theory. On the A-theory, the "now" or present is an objective feature of reality. On the B-theory, time is more like space. Just as there is no objective "here," on the B-theory, there is no objective "now." All time travel literature assumes a B-theory of time. On the A-theory, there is nowhere to go.

Secondly, any attempt to mix the A and B theories of time will result in paradox. If I imagine time as a growing block or a train moving along the tracks, then we can pick a point on the tracks and say "is this point past, present, or future?" Before the train arrives, it is future. When the train is there, it is present. When the train has left, it is past. But wait, this is supposed to be a single point in time. So it cannot be present, and then past. This shows that theories like the train on the tracks or growing block really contain two time dimensions, and then the problem reappears in a different form for each time dimension. So time is either like the tracks, in which case there is no objective present or temporal becoming, or it is like the train, in which case only the present exists. The latter view is also known as presentism. No other options are viable.

Christianity teaches a doctrine of immortality. Daniel 12:2 states that "Those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awaken; some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt." Matthew 25:46 states: "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." Psalm 23 ends will "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Hebrews 7:21 states that Jesus holds his priesthood forever because he continues forever. Revelation 14:11 states that the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they will have no rest day or night.

Dr. Craig has helped to develop the argument against the existence of an actual infinity.. Mathematics has two ideas of infinity, a potential infinity and an actual infinity. A potential infinity is represented by the lazy eight. It is used to express the idea that something is finite, but increasing without limit. An actual infinity is represented by the letter Aleph in mathematics, and it is used to represent an infinity that has been fully and completely actualized. If an actual infinity could exist in real life, it would violate the laws of set theory, and hence the laws of mathematics. Inverse operations such as subtraction and division are prohibited in mathematics. Yet, if I had an actual infinite number of things, I could do impossible operations, like dividing the thing in half. This is why David Hilbert said the actual infinity is purely an idea that cannot be imported into the real world.

Let's put these three insights together. If immortality and the B-theory of time are true, then the timeline is fully actualized and infinitely long. This means that the number of minutes is an actual infinity. Furthermore, if there are objects existing in this realm, then there would be an actualized infinity regarding them, too. Since an actualized infinite is impossible in the real world, then the B-theory cannot be true. This leaves us with one of two options: either deny the doctrine of immortality, or accept presentism as the appropriate theory of time.

Necessary Synthetic Truths

A few years ago, I posted an article called The Ontological Argument for the Triune God. Basically, I stated that:

1. If it is possible (metaphysically) that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great beings exists.

2. It is possible (metaphysically) that a maximally great being exists.

Conclusion: A maximally great being exists.

One of the objectors argued that possibility and necessity only applies to the definitions of words rather than to the properties of objects. The definitions of words are what we call analytic truths. The fact that a bachelor is an umarried male is an analytic truth. Once you know what a bachelor is, you realize that "bachelor" is simply defined as an umarried male.

Another kind of truth is a synthetic truth. Synthetic truths deal with the way reality is configured. The fact that I have a keyboard in front of me is a synthetic truth.

The question then becomes: are there necessary synthetic truths? Let me resort to the tactic of the rabbis by answering a question with a question.

Could reality have been configured differently than it is configured? Or to put it another ways: could the state of affairs be different than it it?

If the answer is no, then all synthetic truths are necessary truths.

If the answer is yes, then:

Necessarily, reality could not have been configured differently.

Synthetic truths deal with the way reality is configured, and therefore either answer is a necessary synthetic truth.

The Impossibility of Regeneration before Jesus

Christian exegetes will often take passages such as Romans 8, which states that those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things according to the flesh, and cannot submit to God's law, nor can it seek after God. I propose that whatever this passage means, it does not mean that the unregenerate cannot submit to God's law, or please God, or seek after God. In fact, the unregenerate have done all of these things, and the proof is in our Bible.

The key to this puzzle is the issue of backward causation, meaning the ability to cause right now something to have happened in the past. Time travel would be one kind of backward causation. The problem with all forms of time travel and backward causation is that they are vulnerable to the bilking paradoxes proposed by Max Black and Antony Flew. An example of a bilking paradox is this.

Let's say I have a light switch that can turn the lights on and off, but when I flick the switch the signal turns the lights on or off 5 minutes in the past. We know that the lights have been on for at least 5 minutes, and have not been turned off. What if I were to flick this light switch. It would create a contradictory state of affairs. The lights, for the past five minutes, would be both on and off. or if I had a gun that killed someone 5 minutes in the past. If I point it at myself and fire, it would kill me, but then I would not be alive to pull the trigger.

No one has ever come up with a refutation of these arguments. Philosophers have argued that one might be able to affect things in the past, so long as they do not create paradoxes, but there has never been any justification of that. What is so special about this backward killing gun that it would work when I pointed it at others, but not if I pointed it at myself? Or what if there were a poison that could kill the victim 5 minutes in the past?

To say that backward causation is possible but the paradoxes are impossible is to say that such a poison could exist but that nobody could take that poison. If I asked for a reason as to why someone could not take that poison, it will not do to say: "because it will create a paradox." We agree on that. It will also not do to say that some contingent cause will swoop in and stop me. For example, I am about to take the poison and it slips from my hand and crashes on the floor. The reason is that the poison slipping from my hand does not explain the impossibility of me taking the poison.

The whole process of me obtaining the poison, putting it in a vial, drinking it, swallowing it, it sending a lethal cause 5 minutes into the past, and my body receiving the signal, and me dying is a chain of causation. We need to know which point in the chain is impossible in order to explain why the chain is impossible. If we deny that backward causation is impossible, then we have an explanation that gets rid of all bilking paradoxes. Otherwise, we we are left with unresolved contradictions.

Therefore if backward causation is possible, then these bilking paradoxes would be possible. But they are not possible, so backward causation is not possible, even for an omnipotent being. God cannot perform backward causation any more than he can create a square circle.

Secondly, the doctrine of regeneration is the doctrine of how we are saved. Titus 3:5-6 states "he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior." 2 Corinthians 5:17 states "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." As Jesus said in John 3:6-7 "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again." There would be little to no purpose to the cross of Christ if we could receive regeneration without it.

Given those two points that the cross is necessary for regeneration, and that the cross of Christ is essential to regeneration, it follows that before the cross of Christ, nobody was regenerate.

Yet, over and over again, the Old Testament states that there were righteous people who sought after God. David was a man after God's own heart. Joseph trusted in the Lord during his captivity and never lost hope. Abel pleased God with his sacrifice. The Holy Spirit even dwelt in people in Old Testament times. Othniel had the indwelling, as did Gideon, and Saul, and David, and many, many others. Hebrews 11 gives a long list of Old Testament saints who through faith became noble, righteous, and powerful servants of God.

And all of them acted without regeneration.